This is more focused on the Egyptians around Luxor, where Upper Egypt was located.

A recent DNA study by Cruciani that focused on the Y chromosome E-M78 revealed that it was ’born’ in North East Africa , not East Africa as previously thought. This means, that an Egyptianwith an M78Y chromosome has had a male line ancestry reaching back to the Pleistocene inhabitants of Egypt; as far back as the Halfan culture about 24,000 years ago.

The M2 lineage is mainly found primarily in ‘‘Eastern,’’ ‘‘sub-Saharan,’’ and sub-equatorial African groups, those with the highest frequency of the ‘‘Broad’’ trend physiognomy, but found also in notable frequencies in Nubia and Upper Egypt, as indicated by the

The Halfan people, of Egypt and Nubia flourished between 18,000 and 15,000 BC in Nubia and Egypt.

One Halfan site is dated, before 24,000 BC.

M2- (20,000-30,000 B.P.)

M35- (22,400 B.P.)

M78– (18,600 B.P.)

This would also give the plausible assignment of the Nubian-M2 and the Ethiopian PN2 (35,000 B.P.) as the

“Progenitors” of “Nubian-Egyptian/Halfan Culture”..

They lived on a diet of large herd animals and theKhormusan tradition of fishing.

Although there are only a few Halfan sites and they are small in size, there is a greater concentration of artifacts, indicating that this was not a people bound to seasonal wandering, but one that had settled, at least for a time.

The Halfan is seen as the parent culture of the Ibero-Maurusian industry which spread across the Sahara and into Spain.

Sometimes seen as a Proto-Afro-Asiatic culture, this group is derived from “The Nile River Valley culture known as Halfan”, dating to about 17,000 BC.

The Halfan culture was derived in turn from the Khormusan, which depended on specializedhunting, fishing, and collecting techniques for survival…

The material remains of this culture are primarily stone tools, flakes, and a multitude of rock paintings.

The end of the Khormusan came around 16000 B.C. and was concurrent with the development of other cultures in the region, including the Gemaian.

According to a genetic study in December 2012, Ramesses III, second Pharaoh of the Twentieth Dynasty and considered to be the Last GreatNew Kingdom king to wield any substantial authority over Egypt, belonged to Y-DNA Haplogroup E1b1a/M2/E-V38, mainly found in North Africa, East Africa and Sub-saharan Africa.

Ramsses III from tomb KV11,

A genetic kinship analysis was done to investigate a possible family relationship between Ramesses III and Unknown man E, Who may actually be his son Pentawer. An ancient Egyptian Prince of the 20th dynasty, and son of Pharaoh Ramesses III and a secondary wife, Tiye. They amplified 16 Y-chromosomal, short tandem repeats (AmpF\STR yfiler PCR amplification kit; Applied Biosystems). Eight polymorphic microsatellites of the nuclear genome were also amplified (Identifiler and AmpF\STR Minifiler kits; Applied Biosystems). The Y-chromosomal Haplogroups of Ramesses III and unknown man E was screened using the Whit Athey’s Haplogroup Predictor we determined the Y-chromosomal Haplogroup E1b1a. The testing of polymorphic autosomal micro satellite loci provided similar results in at least one allele of each marker (table 2⇓). Although the mummy of Ramesses III’s wife Tiy was not available for testing, the identical Ychromosomal DNA and Autosomal half allele sharing of the two male mummies strongly suggest a Father-Son relationship.

E1b1a (V100) This population is one of two important populations to spring out of the Ethiopian Plateau, E1b1a effect became the most dominant population in Subsaharan Africa

E1b1a (M2) This population grew in enough numbers in the Ethiopian lowlands to be able to cross into the territories of Paleo Africans on their West in Sudan E1b1a (L576) This population represents an East to West thrust in Africa, only E1b1a lineage able to survive crossing the A1b1 territories E1b1a (L86.1) This mutation indicates that the population crossed the A1b1 dominated Grassland into the regions West of the great Lakes E1b1a (M58) Expansion between the Great Lakes & Midwest Africa E1b1a (M116.2) Very small minority in Mali E1b1a (M149) Very small minority in South Africa E1b1a (M155) Very small minority in Mali E1b1a (M10) Dispersed between Cameroon & Tanzania E1b1a (L485) An important lineage that emerged in the Eastern Benue valley in Central Nigeria E1b1a (L514) Marker for a strong lineage that played a major role in turning West Africa into their new territor E1b1a (M191) This marker indicates that the main body of (L485) reached the Benue River in Nigeria and Cameroon E1b1a (P252) A population that followed the Benue river South, an important marker of the Bantu expansion in Nigeria E1b1a (P9.2) The population that remained in the Benue region, expanded into West into Nigeria & South to Gabon E1b1a (P115) Eastern limit expansion population, reaching Southwestern Central Africa, with possible presence in other Fang regions E1b1a (P116) South of the Benue expansion in Southern Cameroon & Gabon E1b1a (U175) An important lineage that emerged in the Western region of Benue in Nigeria and Niger E1b1a (U209) This population represents the backbone of the Bantu expansion, emerged and expanded out of the Bantu Urheimat E1b1a (U290) A primary marker of African slavery in the USA, Important lineage in Southern Cameroon E1b1a (M154) Found in Western Cameroon & South Africa E1b1a (P268) Found in Gambia, could possibly indicate an early expansion out of Central Africa or late emergence out of an L86.1* that lived amongst (L485) or (U175)E1b1a (M329) The E1b1a population that remained in the Ethiopian lowlands.

Working Theory in Progress of How Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, Blacks and Whites the “Caribbean”, Roma Gypsies, and

African Americans all Sprung from the Same Well !

~180,000 years ago

A woman [womb-man] walked through Olduvai Gorge

(in present day East Africa Tanzania)

with her small tribe of fellow Homo Sapiens.Her people were destined to be the only species of hominids that would survive, but right now they’re not the only “people” by far…Neanderthals and Homo Erectus still dominate most of the planet. But this lady is special because of all the women walking with her, she alone will be the direct maternal line ancestor of every person alive on the planet today. You may have read about her…“Mitochondrial Eve” and her haplogroup designation is “L”.

~75,000 years ago

In the heart of Central Africa a baby girl is born into Eve’s tribe …she is just like her mom, except that one letter in her mtDNA mutated.

She didn’t know it, but she was the beginning of a new haplogroup branch—L2—that would become the most common haplogroup in Africa. About this time a small band from another branch of “mtDNA mutants”—L3—decided to seek better weather and food by bravely crossing the Gate of Tears off the horn of Africa. They entered the Arabian peninsula—-and from there, this band of 200 or less people would go on to populate the rest of the World.

But their story is not ours…for the L2 baby girl and her descendants all stay in Africa.

~ 55,000 years ago

Among an L2 tribe living in West/Central Africa, another baby girl is born with a new mtDNA mutation…making her the start of a new haplogroup branch L2a.

Her descendant daughtersremain without much mtDNA change for over 50,000 years!

Over that time, some of her people start to migrate across Central Africa to the East area now calledEThiOpiA.

Others of her people started heading North along the nile coast, settling in North Africa and EgYpt and even reached the Levant

(now Israel, Syria, Jordan, Turkey).

~2,500 years ago (500 BCE)

Somewhere in North Africa,EgYpt or the Levant, a baby girl is born with yet another mtDNA mutation…starting the haplogroup line known as L2a1.

Some of her tribes people intermarry with the newly forming Hebrew tribes in the Levant and become Hebrews/Jews.

~ 2,200 years ago (~200 BCE)

It is among this group of African Jews that our common ancestress was born! For fun I’m going to call her Sepharda Fulanivich—a name that hints at our group’s main strains.

Sepharda had no special mutation that would create a new haplogroup,

but she was unique in the way we are all unique…and special because all our maternal lines would lead back to her.

Given how many of us have similar eye color, Sepharda may well have had green/blue eyes. This trait would have been recessive in her daughter descendants, dominated by their brown-eyed mates.…

but always ready to appear again if and when a blue-eyed spouse came along.

~1900 years ago (~100 CE)

One of Sepharda’s descendant daughters was part of a group of Jews who fled the Roman invasions of Judea and headed back into North Africa. They formed a tribe that came to be known as the Fulani.

As they migrated across North Africa, they first settled in the Morocco/Mauritania area and over the next few centuries slowly spread throughout West Africa, converting to Islam, but retaining both the appearance and some traditional memories of their Hebrew origin in the Levant. (Their DNA held the memory as well.)

At about this very same time—give or take 100 years or so!—another of Sepharda’s descendant daughters also fled Judea, heading with her family to Spain (Sepharad, in Hebrew). They may have gone up through Italy first or directly to Spain…we can’t know as yet.

But one way or another, they became Sephardic Jews.

~600 years ago (~1400 CE)

For many centuries, Spain was a place where Jews/hebrews flourished, but things started deteriorating after the Moors left and the Pope’s intolerant minions came to power. Many Jews left the country, heading for France and then Bavaria (Germany), where they mingled with the Ashkenazi Jewish populations already living there.

One of Sepharda’s descendants was among them and she is the common ancestor of all the

This was a lousy time period for almost all of Sepharda’s descendants.

First we go back to West Africa and find that some of her Fulani daughters are among the ones being captured by the British and sent to the Caribbean and the new colonies in America.

Indeed, because we know most of these enslaved daughters of Sepharda were sent to North Carolina originally, we can predict that their common ancestress lived when the trade to that area was peaking—1720 to 1760.

These daughters are the ancestors of almost all of our African-American matches.

Then, over in Spain, things had gone from bad to worse, with a complete expulsion of Jews in 1492. As noted above, some fled into Europe. Many more went farther south into the Turkish (Ottoman) Empire and North Africa. However—-drum roll—a fair number headed for the

British West Indies and by ~1650 CE there was a whole bunch of Sephardic Jews settled in Jamaica and the Bahamas. In 1691 another “auto de fe” (more “burning of Jews”) in Toledo Spain sent another wave of Spanish Jews to Jamaica.

Many of these Jews came as “singles” and ended up intermarrying with the population from the British Isles that had settled there. And among those migrating Spanish women were Sepharda’s daughters, many of whom married non-Jewish Brits and lost the memory of their Jewish past.

Their lines led to our West Indies matches.

And I believe it also explains some “not-Jewish white” folks who trace themselves back to the 17th century in Rhode Island and New Jersey

By ironic coincidence, Jamaica was also a drop for slave traders and it looks very possible that some of our Jamaican matches are from the African slave branch of our line rather than the Sephardic Jewish branch!

~250-400 years ago (1600-1750 CE)

Getting back to those Ashkenazi Jews, we can spell out their story a little more.

Some stayed in Germany …but as the centuries passed and German anti-Semitism increased, other descendant daughters started moving east into Poland and then south towards Romania (where the ancestors of some of us joined up with other Jewish Romas (gypsies)…

interestingly, a very recent study found what was to them a startling level of “L2a” haplotypes among Roma gypsies in Slovakia!

About 1700 or so, some of the Polish daughters migrated north, where some lines settled in Belarus and others went up farther into Lithuania and Latvia .

Afterword

Back in West Africa, right now, some of Sepharda’s daughters are living and don’t even realize all of us cousins elsewhere in the world are thinking of them. That is also true no doubt in Spain…and all the other places our lines have passed through. Some women moved on, but not all of them.

And imagine if Sepharda could come back to life and meet each of us and realize that without her existence….none of us would be here.

That’s the power of one.

Updated October 2008

Author’s Note: This working theory will soon be greatly enhanced by new information as nine of the descendants above (including slave descendants and Caribbeans) get their currently pending Full Genome Sequence results…

All individuals with African variants of mtDNAidentified themselves as ethnical Slavs (ie ‘indigenous’ Russians, Slovaks, Czechs or Poles) and were unaware of their African Ancestry until Molecular Genetic Studies.

For comparative purposes, a large number of published African and Eurasian mtDNA HVS I sequences and any available HVS II or RFLP data were used (see references1, 18, 19, 22, 23). In addition, complete or nearly complete mtDNA sequences pooled in MitoMap mtDNA tree24 were taken into analysis.

The complete mtDNA tree was reconstructed manually and verified by using median-joining algorithm with NETWORK 4.1.0.9.25

For phylogeny construction, the length variation in the poly-C stretches at nts 16180–16193 and 309–315 were not used.

Haplogroup divergence estimates ρ and their standard errors were calculated as average number of substitutions in the mtDNA coding region from the ancestral sequence type.26, 27

To estimate the time to (tmrca) the most recent common ancestor of each cluster,

The evolutionary rate corresponding to 5140 years per substitution in the coding region was used.28

Haplogroup L1b lineage detected in Russian individual is characterized by the transition at position 16175 that is a

Marker of ‘European–specific’ L1b-subcluster revealed also in Germany and medieval Spain (Table 1).

Comparison of its complete genome sequence with the data presented in MitoMap mtDNA tree24shows that